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This is not my story. It is a story that was told to me by an Aymara man in the extreme north of Chile, in a place that was part of the Incan Empire before it was part of the Spanish Empire, in a highland valley in the mountains above the driest desert in the world:


“Listen. I have a story for you. It begins with the Spanish invasion. In the beginning, there was trust. But very soon, there was conflict. And the conflict grew and our people were dying. There was fighting and there was more dying. Two brothers, leaders, saw their people dying and walked into the desert. They walked and walked and when they stopped, they called out to the sun god Inti.

“Great Inti! Why have you abandoned us? What have we done wrong?”

And in a vision, Inti appeared to them.

“Great Inti! What must we do? How can we fight back against the white men?”

And Inti replied, “I cannot beat them back. Their god is more powerful than me. They will win this war.”

“Great Inti! Is there nothing that we can do?”

And Inti replied, “You have been great leaders. You have been wise and kind and just leaders. But I cannot defeat their god. So I will give you a plant. After much fighting, you will lose to the white men. They will take your land and they will dominate your people. But this plant will be a blessing for you and a curse for the white men. It will make you as strong as it will make the white men weak. They will make you work and work and when other men would fall, it will sustain you. But upon them, it will be a blight.

And do you know what that plant was? It was the coca plant. And Inti’s prediction came true. The white man won the war and put our people to work. They forced us to work in deep underground mines, but we chewed the coca leaf and we were strong. They forced us to work planting and harvesting food, but we chewed the coca leaf and we were restored. We chewed the leaf at celebrations and after years of hard work, we are still alive, we are still strong. But for the white man, their greed turned the coca leaf into cocaine.”